1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a spinning reel, and more particularly to a spinning reel including an oscillating mechanism housed in a reel body, the mechanism having a worm shaft rotatable by force from a component associated with a handle and a pawl member engageable with an endless spiral groove defined in a peripheral face of the worm shaft and a transmission member for transmitting a force from the pawl member to a spool shaft.
2. Description of the Related Art
In conventional spinning reel of the above-noted type, as shown in FIG. 12, the oscillating mechanism includes a worm shaft 11, a spool shaft 9 and a transmission member 13'. In this type of oscillating mechanism, in order to eliminate mechanical looseness resulting from play provided between the spiral groove 11A and the pawl member 12 and between the worm shaft 11 and the transmission member 13', a predetermined face of the transmission member 13' is placed in slight contact with a predetermined inner face of the reel body 2, so that during a movement of the transmission member 13' the sliding slight contact between the faces serves to stabilize the moving posture of the transmission member 13'.
Incidentally, such predetermined amount of play gap is generally provided between the worm shaft 11 and the transmission member 13' for the purpose of obtaining smooth mechanical movements of these members by avoiding distortion.
However, the reel body of the spinning reel is generally manufactured by molding of e.g. a resin material; and therefore, the reel body may be deformed, due to e.g. internal stress, when and after the molded reel is withdrawn from the metal mold. For instance, if such deformation occurs as denoted with a virtual line L in FIG. 12, within the moving stroke of the transmission member 13', there are formed a region where the transmission member 13' comes into too strong contact with the reel body 2 and a further region where these components 2, 13' hardly come into contact with each other. This interferes with smooth and uniform movement of the transmission member 13' and also creates undesirable looseness in the transmission member 13'.
The same inconvenience will occur if the reel is accidentally dropped onto or struck against a hard object such as a concrete face.
The unsmooth movement provides a user with uncomfortable and uneven operation feel.
Accordingly, the primary object of the present invention is to provide an improved spinning reel which constantly allows smooth spinning action even when deformation occurs in the reel body.